Care home criticised over safety risks and pureed meals

A Crawley care home has been told to improve after inspectors raised safety concerns.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), which inspected the home, also found that some residents had ‘all of their food pureed all together’.

Greensleeves Care Home in Perryfield Road in Southgate was criticised by the CQC following a recent unannounced inspection.

The home, which provides nursing and dementia care for ladies only, was given a rating of ‘requires improvement’ by the CQC, the third highest of the four ratings it can give.

It also received ‘requires improvement’ scores for four out of the five subcategories the health watchdog looks at: ‘is the service safe?’, ‘is the service effective?’, ‘is the service responsive [to people’s needs]?’, and ‘is the service well-led?’. The home was rated ‘good’ for the remaining category: ‘is the service caring?’.

The home was inspected over two days in September and the findings were published in a report earlier this month.

Inspectors found that risks were not managed consistently, a spokesperson for the CQC said in the report.

While systems were in place to identify and reduce risks to people, risks were not always followed up or reassessed, they added.

The report said people and their relatives felt safe at the home and that staff were caring and treated people with respect.

However, the spokesperson said: “People did not receive care and support in line with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

“Mental capacity assessments had not been completed for any of the people living at the home. People were assumed to lack capacity as they were living with dementia.”

While people were supported to eat and drink enough to maintain their health, the CQC reported that “some people had all of their food pureed all together and not as individual items.

“This meant that people could not taste or see the different colours of individual foods as all food would look the same.”

A spokesperson for Greensleeves Care Home said: “Greensleeves Care Home has a very good reputation for the care it provides and has been providing high standards of care for local people for the last 15 years.